& Tuesday August 30, 2011

MICHAEL Fassbender almost embarked on a career as a heavy metal guitarist.

The Jane Eyre actor formed a rock band with his friend Mike when they were teenagers, but the project was abandoned a disastrous first concert in a pub in Dingle, Ireland, where he grew up.

"I had heavy metal, that was a great help to me," he said. "Banging your head kills so many brain cells you don't think too much.

"We tried to busk but it was raining, so we persuaded this guy to let us play in his pub, but we were playing heavy metal and it was lunchtime, so it was like, 'turn it down guys, turn it down'.

"In the end we were playing on unplugged electric guitars, so we said, let's just give it up."

Michael also had aspirations to be a lawyer, an architect or a war journalist when he was younger, but as soon as he started acting — first in a surreal production written by his drama teacher when he was 17, then directing his own production of Reservoir Dogs — he knew it was what he wanted to focus his career on.

"Once I thought perhaps I could be quite good, I committed to it 100 per cent, it was my one and only priority," he added.

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